


you are the northern lights

by iaddedarainbow



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 13:05:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6330373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iaddedarainbow/pseuds/iaddedarainbow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, Derek doesn't have to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are the northern lights

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2014 and subsequently misplaced/forgotten/shuffled around through different laptops and hard-drives. Self-indulgent? MAYBE. ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME, etc. ;* Un-beta'ed. Title from Josh Ritter's Kathleen.

There's a question he's been meaning to ask, ever since Stiles' dad sold the house Stiles grew up in after moving in with Melissa last fall. And it's not just that Derek is nervous, because he is man enough to admit when he is (and he really is), but Stiles has been acting different these past few months.

Derek doesn't know what's going on with him. He always waves it away with a " _nothing_ " and a shrug, but there is definitely something going on with Stiles lately, and he's not just saying that because he's _constantly_ getting on Derek's nerves with his restlessness. It wouldn't be as frustrating if they didn't live together, but since Derek can hear Stiles' erratic heartbeat and incessant fidgeting even from the opposite end of the apartment: something has to be done.

Derek isn't necessarily dressed for battle when he corners Stiles in the kitchen, blocking him in against the counter with his arms. The wide-eyed cornered look on Stiles' face makes Derek feel like he should be, though. Or at least dressed in something other than worn-soft boxer briefs and a ratty t-shirt with a weird stain two inches below the collar and a hole in the armpit— what basically amounts to pajamas for him on a Sunday afternoon. 

Stiles, in contrast to his lazy Sunday attire, looks to Derek like prey. He's wearing Derek's boxers and a blue v-neck (and maybe that's Derek's, too) that's too large on him on the shoulders, and the collar is like an arrow pointing to that one spot that Derek loves on Stiles' body, and to the bruise Derek left there a few nights before. It's still a vivid red and Derek swallows, thickly, just at the memory of his mouth there.

"Uh, my eyes are up here, dude." 

Snapping out of his daze, Derek looks up and— jesus, he loves this man. The look in Stiles' eyes is a mixture of amusement and fondness, something so achingly simple and so familiar that it makes Derek want to curl up around him and just—

"What's going on with you?" he asks, instead. "You've been acting," he trails off, thought process derailed by Stiles' hands slowly running up his forearms. 

"Um," Stiles starts and stops. Looks down at the space between them, then back up at Derek's eyes.

He looks a little... desperate?

"Stiles?" Derek asks, softly.

He sighs and withdraws his hands, leaving Derek feeling automatically colder, to run them through his hair nervously. "How long—" he starts and stops again, and _fuck_ this is frustrating, and scaring, Derek.

Derek takes a mental step back and uses two fingers to tip Stiles' chin up. He looks into his eyes for a while, trying to find some sort of clue in that whiskey brown as to what's suddenly now changing between them.

Because they're standing so close, and because Derek has a soft and yet firm grip on Stiles' face, he sees the moment that Stiles' eyes harden and he makes whatever decision it is he's been struggling with.

"How long has that ring been in your drawer?"

The air automatically shifts from something strung tight to something lighter, almost carefree, and Derek would definitely notice if he wasn't so busy trying not to turn as red as the apples they have sitting in the ornamental bowl on the breakfast table.

"I was waiting for the right moment," he manages to spit out, beyond mortified. And Stiles! That fucker has the audacity to look like a cat that got the annoying-ass canary. "Can you stop looking so—"

"So?"

"So smug, Stiles, goddamn it."

The smile on Stiles' face is absolutely blinding. "You want to marry me," he says, happily, and Derek can only groan in response, burying his face in Stiles' neck.

"I was," Derek says, "Going to ask you when—"

Stiles makes that unattractive pig-snort he does when he's unimpressed. "I found it months ago, Derek. Were you going to ask when the moon turned green and the planets re-aligned?"

"Shut up," Derek whines into Stiles' neck. He brings his arms around Stiles and drags him into a hug.

"It's been in that drawer for months," Stiles points out laughing, which, okay. That is a good, solid point.

"You weren't supposed to find it," Derek points out in turn.

"Dude," he says, "We share everything, including underwear, so you cannot possibly think the underwear drawer was a good hiding spot for an engagement ring."

Derek lets a little silence build between them while he figures out how to best phrase the words _I hid it with the Christmas decorations for a few months before I moved it_ and also _and before that it was in my office drawer at work_ and apparently Stiles thinks the silence is telling or something, because his dumb ass asks, with this suspicious tone in his voice, "How long have you had it?"

They have a No Lying Policy in their relationship, but technically he isn't lying if he doesn't say anything, right? 

"Derek?" Stiles asks softly, bringing a hand up to curl around the back of Derek's burning red neck. 

And Derek, with his face still buried in Stiles' neck, admits: "Since last summer."

And he still remembers how nervous he was when he walked into that jewelry store, at the idea that Stiles could say _no_ and even more terrified of him saying _yes_. It was late July and Maggie, the elderly sales attendant, had spent hours helping Derek pick out the perfect ring, going section by section until Derek had finally spotted them out of the corner of his eye: a pair of platinum rings with a delicate sliver of white gold through the middle. They were simple. Relatively inexpensive.

But Derek could see himself wearing that ring for the rest of his life, and it made him feel weightless and fragile to think of Stiles wearing its twin.

"It's almost September," Stiles says. His voice is quiet, a little nervous. His breathing is a little shallow, and his pulse, right next to Derek's ear, is strong enough to drown out everything else; fast, like Stiles is running a marathon in his own kitchen.

It's that thought, of Stiles running from something, that makes Derek pull away and up. 

They've shared so many kisses in the past ten years, but this one is entirely different. There's a sweetness to it that makes Derek's eyes sting and his chest ache where his heart should be, and he doesn't know if it's his tears or Stiles' making their lips a little sloppy, in a way that Derek's never experienced with Stiles. 

"Let me do this right," Derek asks after they break apart with a soft gasp, foreheads touching and eyes still closed.

"Derek," Stiles says into the space between their lips, like his name is a secret that Stiles has kept all his life. 

"Yeah?" he asks, unable to keep his eyes closed any longer. When the world comes into view again, he sees Stiles, blinding grin back in full force, and once again Derek is blown away by how much he loves this man.

"I thought you were never going to ask me," he says. "So a few months ago, I— well."

Derek can feel his eyes widening in realization. "You?" he prompts.

"I was looking for a good hiding spot," Stiles says, smiling wryly, and Derek can't hold it in: he laughs at the absurdity of it.

Before kissing him quiet, Stiles says, "It was always going to be the right time."


End file.
